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BayStar Cashes Out of SCO Stock
Kurt Wall writes "According to Yahoo! Finance, BayStar, the company that funded SCO to the tune of $50,000,000, and then later changed the terms of the deal, has requested that SCO redeem the 20,000 shares of preferred stock issued in return for the funding. The reason? BayStar states that 'SCO has allegedly breached Sections 2(b)(v), 2(b)(viii) and 3(g) of the Exchange Agreement.' Naturally, SCO thinks it has done nothing of the sort."
So what will happen? I say we're going to see a SCOX vs BayStar lawsuit. SCO likes lawsuits. They like to stall for time while talking shit to the press. It gives them time to dump stock gotten cheaply from options. We'll get more of that. Only this time, investor-types (people who matter as far as the stock is concerned) won't like it. Fucking around with your big investors? Now, that's something else compared to fucking around with a bunch of hippie nerds and IBM.
I assume the "SCO must have permission from BayStar to start lawsuits"-clause in the contract won't be a hindrance, since probably BayStar will start it :-)
If BayStar is able to get ~$20M back (20000 at $1000 plus interest and penalties), then maybe RBC want their part back... which would instantly kill SCOX dead, dead, dead.
suggested mod-limit: 3
Belief is the currency of delusion.
BayStar probably wants out because the incident with Microsoft "recommending" that they invest looks bad.
--Mike Boos
I wonder if this means that SCO will now sue Baystar?
I shorted at 17.96 in January. I love these types of announcements. They make me more $$$ (negative publicity that is). I'm wondering if I should wait for bankruptcy to buy or just to take the money and run. There is a chance they may live (however small that is).
And SCO is going to die by the sword. What is SCO going to do next take baystar to court?? The judge will put that money in a lien, and lock it down until the suit is over. Take away 2/3rd's of SCO cash and keep boise paid they will burn out of cash in 6 months. If they get a break in the court with IBM. If not the next few months will be fun.
It's been a Good Day.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Ok, a bit conspiracy-theoryish, but many including myself have speculated that there was someone behind the scenes of the entire SCO mess pulling the strings.
Could it be that said string-puller has decided that there is too much risk that (a) SCO will not only lose its suits, but do so in a way that validates the GPL (b) IBM might break through the Canopy/Baystar corporate veil and find out who the string puller is? And therefore that person has taken some action to force SCO into bankruptcy and pull the plug on the lawsuits?
sPh
Maybe it was IBM instead of Microsoft behind the Baystar investment? :)
Yeah, it really ought to be "the Owner of a UNIX Operating System." since anything the Open Groups deems to be Unix IS Unix.
I don't know why, but for some reason I'm reminded of what I heard once about tornadoes.
It's not the high winds that damage a house, it's that sudden change of pressure that causes the house to explode from the imbalance.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
If you're so hung-up on testing the legality of GPL, file your own damned lawsuit against IBM and make sure it goes to court. Otherwise, spare us the repetitive whining.
Using the link above, you can gain some additional insight.
IF you look at the sell orders (ASK) vs the buy (BID) orders outstanding, it tells a horrible story for people who own SCO.
Things to look for. What are people willing to pay for SCO, vs what people are asking to sell it. Compare both groups to the current asking price and you can see that most people who want to buy aren't the same as those who want to sell. People wanting to buy really know what the value is, while those people willing to sell are looking to squeeze a few extra $ out before cashing out.
Expect the $ to drop substantially. Then perhaps you might find SCO does get its wish and get bought out by someone. Although it would be fun just watching the ship sink into the abyss.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Moderators, please mod the parent down. What does this have to do with testing the GPL? I thought SCO was suing for copyright infringment. Even if the GPL had been tested dozens of courts, if an open source project has privately copyrighted code, it is open to lawsuits. I'm not claiming that Linux has SCO code, only that this is not a test of the GPL.
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
According to the ZD Net article BayStar seeks to retrieve investment in SCO:
(emphasis added) Makes one wonder who, if anyone, else owns preferred stock in SCO that is subject to the same or similar provisions.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Someone, not sure of the quality of the bank, asks to cash out in a high profile way.
Soon, everyone else follows killing the bank.
Maybe this will signal the begining of the end for SCO.
I couldn't understand how their stock prices went up to start with all of the experts purporting that they never had a case.
Steve
If SCO goes bankrupt, this (I assume) goes in a legal round file somewhere. Then we can just wait for Microsoft to come at us directly with an army of lawyers that dwarfs IBM.
IBM was accused of not keeping their hands clean with contracts and licences. They will not rest until SCO's accusations have been completely and utterly discredited, even if it means flogging a dead horse. That they "ran SCO's war chest empty" simply won't do.
It has very little to do with the SCO case at all. IBM is relying on major contractors like military, government, major businesses selecting IBM because they are rock solid and trustworthy. That the data they entrust to IBM systems will be handled exactly as specified in contracts.
That, and I suppose some people in IBM would take a certain pleasure in doing it. But hey, if you can have both business and pleasure, why not?
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This whole process has smelled of something not quite right.
Through the whole process, SCO's claims were bordering on ridiculous. Their antics rarely ever resulted in a stronger chance of being able to win the case.. they merely generated more publicity.
It looks to me like their only goal in the whole process was to create as much FUD about Linux and Free Software as they could. To get as much media coverage as possible, creating that seed of doubt in as many IT managers minds as possible.
The grand finale is when they cannot fund the lawsuit anymore, and close up shop. With no conclusion to the case, that cloud of FUD still hangs over Linux.
Yeah.. that's quite a conspiracy theory. It's probably more likely that the SCO people are merely morons. But, whether by design or by their ineptitude, I think that the death of SCO before resolving the case would be a bad thing.
In the last week there have been three Form 4's and two Form 144's. I'm sure the accused will offer a completely reasonable Martha Stewartesque explanation in their defence.
The subject tag deserves more attention than it is getting: why is Baystar doing it now?
Given the connections that Baystar has with MS/Paul Alen et al, There has to be an angle that makes it worthwhile for them. Also remember that it was SCO that issued a press release with this bit of info. When was the last time they issued a pr with any info that showed them in a bad light?
One possible scenario is that our friends at Canopy/MS have decided to pull the plug and bankrupt/kill SCO before IBM pierces the corporate veil and sends a bunch of execs to sing-sing (or at least gets a court to find them personally liable for SCO's misdeeds.)
cheers- raga
And that's on high volume of trading. The slide has begun. I'm getting up a pool on when SCOX will be pulled from trading.
I don't need no estinkin'
Jeepmeister
I worry that if the BOC joins in and asks for their $30M back, SCO goes bankrupt. If they go bankrupt, it's not like their lawsuits go away. Instead (IIRC, IANAL as usual) suits they filed are put on hold until after administration, while suits filed against them are voided with the option to re-file after administration. Stretching these out even more years wouldn't be a good result, I don't think. They need to be crushed in court.
Anyone who is a lawyer, or knows about corporate bankruptcy procedures, and can comment on this?
Wow, how many times has this been explained before? Its a good thing that the GPL hasn't been challenged. No one in their right mind is going to challenge the GPL. Why? you ask. Because any company who does is screwed wheither they win or lose. In fact they are more screwed if they win! Here's how it works:
.. but do they? Oops if the GPL is invalid then the code reverts back to the copyright owner (i.e. the mplayer guys) now the company has just admitted to blatent copyright infingement for which there are monetary damages + pulling their products, etc, etc. It gets better, if the GPL is invalid then its likely that all software licenses probably are by the same logic. In my opinion more so, as the GPL grants rights while most other licenses take them away! So now suddenly you have a situation where people can start challenging everyone's licenses. I can name a few large companies that probably would not be happy about that at all.
Say some company takes mplayer and makes a proprietary product out of it. The guys who make mplayer sue because the company has violated their license. Owner of the company is an idiot and the case actually goes to court.
Scenario 1: The Company loses. Probably all they have to do is open source their product, possibly costing themselves some money if they have to recall software on a shelf somewhere, etc.
Scenario 2: The GPL is declared invalid. The company wins
Scenario 3: Some off his rocker judge says the GPL effectively puts software in the public domain. Well the same could then be true about all software licenses as in scenario 2. That's all that the Company can really hope for, even though its immediatly up for debate if that company's own licenses are valid.
So as you can see it makes much more sense if a company simply complies. And as even reported by the FSF they do deal with GPL violations and so far they have 100% complience because its a no-win situation for a company that steals GPL code.
The Anti-Blog
I have 1000 shares of SCOX short, and the amount that's above water is earning interest at 0.1%. I think last month it brought in $0.35 (which is, granted, practically nothing). If it goes so high that it cuts into my margin account, then I would pay. I use Scottrade. If your broker doesn't have dirt-cheap commissions and doesn't do basic things like paying interest on your cash balances, dear god get another broker.
"If at first you don't succeed, lower your standards."
Because Boies once worked for IBM, back when the US Govt sued IBM for antitrust. In the legal industry, the fact that Boies was once a "related party" to IBM and now he's an "adverse party" since he's working against IBM, that constitutes attorney "Conflict of Interest" (COI). If Boies botches, or even just loses the case for SCO, then SCO can solidly claim "legal malpractice" against Boies, take him to the cleaners and possibly ruin his ability to ever practice law again.
Given the high profile of this case, I'm still stunned and amazed that noone has made a big deal of this yet. I used to work in the lawfirm computing biz, and was an expert in building COI databases and software search engines. Doing a COI search before taking on a new client was a fundamental requirement at all the lawfirms I worked for. No firm would dare even think of taking on a new client without a thorough COI search and even the slightest hint of a COI would be a disqualifier. Boies past employment by IBM isn't a vague COI, it's a hugely blatant COI. Something smells really, really fishy in the legal world about this whole SCO case.
Are you guys all forgeting the MS + Baystar connection? The leaked memo? That shit totally fucked SCO over, MS wants out badly. There are serious legal implications for MS if a investigation shows they directly or even indirectly funded this. At least now, the company can claim plausable deniabilty.
Next time they'll be smarter though. The plan now is for SCO to back out before the GPL is held up in US court and for someone else to come in and carry the FUD torch against Linux. Its probably going to suit patent related.
SCO is a model for everything that is wrong in the legal system of the US. It is fortunate that they are here, to point out problems, which may or may not need to be fixed. Where does freedom to take people to court end and where does throwing out stupid cases begin?
Sigh.... You guys are all missing the point. I will make some predictions. See if they don't come true.
1) SCO Agrees to buy back Baystar's shares.
2) SCO Investors launch class action lawsuite against SCO
3) SCO declares bankrupcy
4) Darl McBride nevers sells *any* stock options for SCO
5) All lawsuits are dropped against the now non-entity previously know as SCO
6) Microsoft uses the publicity to lobby the government to create laws restricting "unfair trade practices" of "free" software.
7) Six months after the fall of SCO, Darl McBride is hired by some Microsoft/Paul Allen connected corporate entity and given a large signing bonus.
Gee... Hardly even needed my tinfoil hat for that...